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November 6, 2012

Live From Dixville: Republican Rumpus 2012!Posted by Jim Macdonald at 12:03 AM *

It’s time for the national election, and Making Light lifts the curtain with this Live Report from Dixville “First in the Nation” Notch, New Hampshire. Voting this year is at the Balsams Wilderness Ski Area while the main hotel is being refurbished.

1. “Are you in favor of amending the second part of the constitution by inserting after article 5-b a new article to read as follows: [Art.] 5-c.
[Income Tax Prohibited.] Notwithstanding any general or special provision of this constitution, the general court shall not have the power or
authority to impose and levy any assessment, rate, or tax upon income earned by any natural person; however, nothing in this Article shall be
construed to prohibit any tax in effect on January 1, 2012, or adjustment to the rate of such a tax.” (Passed by the N.H. House 256 Yes 110 No;
Passed by State Senate 19 Yes 4 No) CACR 13

Yes - 7
No - 1

2. “Are you in favor of amending article 73-a of the second part of the constitution to read as follows: [Art.] 73-a [Supreme Court, Administration.]
The chief justice of the supreme court shall be the administrative head of all the courts. The chief justice shall, with the concurrence of a majority
of the supreme court justices, make rules governing the administration of all courts in the state and the practice and procedure to be followed in all
such courts. The rules so promulgated shall have the force and effect of law. The legislature shall have a concurrent power to regulate the same
matters by statute. In the event of a conflict between a statute and a court rule, the statute, if not otherwise contrary to this constitution, shall prevail
over the rule.” (Passed by the N.H. House 242 Yes 96 No; Passed by State Senate 19 Yes 5 No) CACR 26

Yes - 6
No - 2

Question Proposed pursuant to Part II, Article 100 of the New Hampshire Constitution:

Only ten voters in Dixville Notch this time around . . . the closing of the Balsams hit them hard. A check of the 2008 Dixville Notch presidential results showed 21 voters that year -- it looks like most of the ones who moved away were Democrats.

I found it interesting that the NH House of Representatives apparently has multi-member districts (as there are two members being selected on the Dixville Notch ballot). So you can be represented by people from more than one party (though looking over the listing in Wikipedia, it looks like most districts are either single party or all-but-one-member single party).

You need a pretty big chamber to do this (NH has 400 representatives, nearly twice that of more-populous PA; on the other hand, NH reps are essentially unpaid while PA's get $78K/year each). I'm curious if you, or other folks living in multi-member districts (how common is that?) find that it works notably better or differently from single-member legislative districts.

JMO @12: Maryland provides for three delegates (lower house) per senatorial district. In sparsely populated areas each of these delegates gets hir own sub-district, but in the DC-Baltimore corridor they have multi-member districts. In my experience, having MMDs makes it even harder to knock off an entrenched incumbent: you have to place not one but two or three other candidates ahead of hir. The Baltimore City Council switched a few years ago from multi-member districts to smaller single-member districts by referendum in the name of increased accountability.

Not only can districts be represented by more than one party, but the same person can represent more than one party (by getting write-ins in the other party's column).
Anyway, the joke about the New Hampshire House of Representatives is that not only is it the world's largest legislative body (on a per-capita basis), but it's the only one still meeting in its original chambers, so the odd things they propose and their bizarre votes are explained by lack of oxygen.

As to how well it works, it works well enough, I suppose. It does make sure that a large-enough minority isn't overlooked.

Your democracy at work, America: according to a Balloon Juice commenter, the Republican candidate for state Treasurer in North Carolina is saying that if he is elected, he intends to get NC ready to issue its own currency, in case the dollar collapses. The Democratic candidate thinks this is not a good use of state resources...

Michael, #10: So do I. That was a most satisfying THUNK when you'd set all your choices and you pulled the big lever to cast your vote.

OTOH, I'll bet that the electronic machines are a lot easier for people with strength, range-of-motion, or some mobility issues to use. So there's a place for them; I just wish they weren't the most common option because they're too easy to compromise.

When it was my turn to feed my filled-in ballot to the electronic voto-droid, a poll-worker looked at me seriously and asked, "You filled out your ballot, right?" Question marks swirled over my head.

Then I realized that some voters (well, non-voters, apparently) must have checked into their polling station, received their blank ballot, crossed directly to the line at the electronic voto-droid and patriotically fed their blank ballot into the machine.

I have a suspicion the voto-droid rejected such ballots, but I'm not actually sure about that.

I just cast my vote -- you fill in the circles with a black marker here, not a pencil. (Which makes more sense -- pencil could be erased.)

It was a weird experience this year. First off, there were three sheriff pickups -- one unmarked -- in a cluster up the road from the voting place. I don't know if they'd just voted on their lunch break, if they were waiting for someone specific (this area has its fair share of true nuts, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were threats), or if they were just parked there because it was a convenient place to have a quick conference. This area's so rural, though, it's unusual to see more than one officer at a time, so to see three of them sitting together in one place was a bit odd.

Then, when I went in to vote, they couldn't find my name -- which was weird, because, uh, I've been voting in this district for eleven years. They finally found me on the list with my first and last name transposed. Had I not been polite and stubbornly persistent I probably would not have been allowed to vote ...!

I did get to vote, thankfully. (Arizona will probably go Republican for president, but there's a close-ish senate race, and some initiatives that I was eager to vote against.)

From what I could tell, we had even higher turnout at my polling location (Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis) early this morning than we had 4 years ago. My brother typically votes a little before 10am & thinks there were also more people at that time this year than in 2008.

Both years I've gotten in line before the polls opened. The number of people already in line seemed about the same as of 7am. As I remember 2008, by the time I finished my ballot & left the line was pretty much gone -- everyone had gotten at least inside the building, voted & left. There were still people coming & going, but there wasn't a line outside the community center. But this morning, by the time I finishd and left just before 7.30, the line was still out the door, around the building and trailing almost down to the lake!

Historically, the vast majority of PP votes go to the Democrats, with a significant number for the Greens and various flavors of Socialists, and I assume the same will be true this year - local demographics haven't changed significantly, no increase in Republican yard signs, etc. One anecdote certainly doesn't prove anything, but it's heartening to know that the blather about lack of enthusiasm on the left is untrue in at least one place!

The New Hampshire early results made it into the Seattle Times, with much less detail. The story was datelined Dixville Notch, but included the information about Hart's Location (a bit larger and slower to count). For some reason, it wasn't on the front page, but buried on page 4....

JMO @13, Washington State also has multi-member districts -- each of our 49 districts elects one Senator and two Representatives. However, each seat is distinct on the ballot: House candidates run separately for either Seat 1 or Seat 2.

Very roughly speaking, the state is politically divided between the extended Seattle/Puget Sound area (Democratic) and the largely rural remainder (Republican), and indeed five of the six districts with mixed representation are on the outermost fringes of the Seattle metropolitan area.

I voted before work. Line was a little longer than I expected (maybe 5-6 people) and between the procedure and the people manning my polling station, it was a bit slow. I miss the old voting machines too, but at least this time the scanner didn't jam on me.

I think our districts must be pretty small - we have three voting in one room (the town courthouse) with one 4 person voting station and one scanner each. There were some people (mostly elderly) sitting at tables to fill out their ballots.

Also for those of you who, like me, did not get a sticker you can have either Captain America or Scholastic. I think the tweets about the lack of stickers in some precincts have outnumbered other voting tweets in my feed today.

Sten @35: Sure you can turn in a ballot that has one or more "no votes" on it. I don't really know what the voto-droid would do if you made no mark at *all* on a ballot, though.

It makes no logic-tree sense that it would allow you to feed it a *completely* blank ballot, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't let you do it, I guess.

The thing that I found a little troubling about what I surmised was happening was that the absent-minded or still-asleep or slightly-confused might end up submitting a completely blank ballot and then, of course, would not be allowed a do-over because nobody could be assured that they *had* submitted a blank ballot. Unless the voto-droid rejected it, of course.

If you submitted a completely or partially blank ballot, would it be technically possible for a sufficiently sneaky election worker to mark it himself (by punching a hole or ticking a box with a pen - I am still not clear about exactly what the ballots look like)?

Voted here, in Travis County, Texas. My usual polling place is conveniently right across the street from my apartment.

However, instead of the 15-30 minute maximum wait I am accustomed to, it took two hours. I don't know if it's because more people turned out than usual, or because Travis County is now offering the option to vote anywhere in the county. (Which I didn't think would affect us, we're at the far north end of the county. It just occurred to me, though, that there are major employers in Williamson County, about 5 minutes' drive from my subdivision, and it might be more convenient for people who live in Travis but work in Williamson to try to drop by on their way to work, or on their lunch breaks.)

Whatever the cause of the lines, I can say as a certainty that five voting machines were not enough.

Husband was smart and voted early. I think I'll do the same next time.

An election worker could not mark it or alter it because the voter him/herself puts the ballot into the machine. They even have "privacy envelopes" you can hold your marked ballot inside as you are waiting to slip it into the machine.

You feed your ballot in, the machine sucks it up, thinks for a moment, flashes a message on the screen that your ballot has been counted, then stores your paper ballot in its belly for later, if needed, confirmation of vote count.

On the way to give blood (after voting) I heard the CBS radio humorous commentator Dave Ross talking about the Dixville Notch vote. He opined that they'd probably sat down over waffles and planned the whole thing. And further stated that waffle intoxication was a problem in New Hampshire. To which I can only say, it's lies, all lies!

Jennifer Baughman@39, that may not be entirely accidental. Travis County is Austin, which is rather different culturally and politically from Most of Texas, and if I were corruptly running an election bureau, I'd allocate more voting machines to more politically correct parts of the state, just as Ohio did in 2004. Or maybe it was just too close to lunchtime.

I'm putting down the computer, walking away, going to go vote and go to work now. (But...but... there are still New Tweets coming in about the elections!... Must hit "update" now!...

Sten, it depends on where you're at. Here in Arizona it would be difficult but not impossible. After filling in your bubbles with a black marker you carry your ballot in a cardboard folder (which conceals how you voted) to a very sturdy locked box that sucks it out of your folder (a tip of the ballet sticks out, so it can grab it). The ballot box is locked and has an electronic counter on it. I don't know if it also scans the results as the ballet is sucked in, though that would add to the efficiency and security of the process.

The ballot box is presumably transported to a secure location for counting.

I can envision any number of ways this could still be rigged, but not without significant high-level corruption. The workers at the polls wouldn't be able to alter your ballot here. The Democrats in this state are a small but fierce minority, too, and I'm sure they have their eyes on the process.

Of course, this is Arizona, so high level corruption is entirely possible. This state's history when it comes to corruption, political stupidity, and general malfeasance dates back to before Arizona was a state.

In all my years of voting (all in the same county, though in different districts), I've never voted with a Ker-CHUNK machine. Nor did I ever see one even when I was a little kid and went with my parents when they voted in the late '60s. I only know them through descriptions.

I know people who voted in the next county over who did use them, though, up through maybe 20 years agoish. When I started voting, it was a punch-out vote, with a plastic guide that slipped over your card and lined it up with however many holes there were for that election, (conveniently cone-shaped to guide the stylus in) and a stylus to punch out the holes with. I never saw a hanging chad on any of my ballots; they all punched easily and cleanly. Perhaps they used better perforation tech than Florida did.

Later, (and currently) they went to the "fill in the oval with the provided black marker" ballot, that you then feed into a scanning-and-storing machine.

I didn't think to count the number of polling stations at my polling place this morning; it was approximately 10, with one electronic screen.

I had to wait for about five people in front of me, which is highly unusual, especially for a mid-morning vote. Our ballot was very short; just the president, a congressman, a state representative, the forest preserve district, the county board, three judges, a state constitutional amendment, and a proposition. There were a few other offices, but they were unopposed, so I don't remember them. It took maybe five minutes to vote, after another five minutes in line.

The places with the long lines must have a lot more things on the ballot, a lot fewer polling stations, or both. I mentioned to one of the poll workers that I knew some people in other states who had to wait over an hour to vote, and she was shocked that they didn't have enough polling stations for the expected number of voters to be processed quickly.

Michael @40, Cygnet @47: Thank you for the explanation, that makes a lot of sense.

For some reason, I was under the impression that you put your folder containing the vote in a physical box, and that an election worker later (presumably after the voting had closed) fed all ballots into a machine for counting. Glad to hear that it is handled better than I thought.

I wonder if the people who didn't fill out their ballots thought that you put the paper ballot into a machine, made your choices by pushing buttons on the machine, and then the machine would physically mark the ballot for you? That's the only thought process that makes sense to me as to why someone would get a blank ballot and immediately feed it into a machine.

Either that, or a moment in which they got distracted by their kid, a friend, etc., after receiving their blank ballot, and after the distraction had ended, they genuinely thought they'd filled out the ballot already. I can imagine that happening to me (although it never has).

Every time I've voted in a county that uses paper scantron ballots, the poll worker at the scantron machine has said something cheerful like "All done?" as I approach with my filled-out ballot. I hope that interaction gets people to make sure they are, in fact, all done before they feed their ballot in.

I've also never been offered a folder to hold my ballot as I walk from booth to machine. I've never felt like anyone was trying to look at my ballot, but just on principle, I wish folders were SOP everywhere. I mean, what if your ride to the polls is a controlling parent or partner who will have a look at your ballot if he or she can?

In general I'm a big proponent of paper scantron ballots, because you get both the speed of automated vote counting and the paper trail you need to recheck errors or do a meaningful recount. But privacy between filling out your ballot and feeding it into the scanner could be an issue.

#50 Caroline: I wonder if the people who didn't fill out their ballots thought that you put the paper ballot into a machine, made your choices by pushing buttons on the machine, and then the machine would physically mark the ballot for you?

I think that is precisely what happens most of those times when the blank ballot rears its empty bubbled head. Most voters here (NYC) have voted with the Ker-Plunk machines most of their voting lives, I think. We are still not quite used to these new-fangled dealie-bobs.

That's a known attack on paper ballots, assuming they're not kept physically secure. Though it's probably easier, assuming you have physical control of the ballots for awhile and know what the ballots look like, to just replace some ballots directly. (Whether that works or not depends on other procedures, but the more fundamental issue is whether the paper ballots are kept secure or not.)

I think most opscan machines can be configured to reject ballots with overvotes (which in many places spoils the ballot) or blank ballots, or potentially even undervotes (where you leave some race blank--but lots of people do that intentionally, so I think few jurisdictions use that option). IIRC, one good reason to reject a blank ballot is to catch the case where a ballot is put in upside-down or backwards, and the marks aren't where theyr'e supposed to be.

There are also voting machines that do fill out or print a paper ballot for you--usually called ballot marking devices. I think these are mainly used to meet the legal requirement for every polling place to have at least one accessible voting machine, so blind (and many other) people can vote without any human assistance.

My local polling place was closed* today, but I was able to cast a provisional/affidavit ballot at my sister's polling place (only for President and US Senator, though, since it's the wrong county). That covers multiple election districts (as is fairly common around here), so the line was pretty long at midafternoon. I had to wait almost an hour to get my ballot, and the room was packed with milling people picking up ballots and voting. There did seem to be plenty of machines available. Everyone was pretty cheerful about the wait, even though it's quite cold out, and most of the line was outside (down the block, wrapped around the corner). The group in front of me had cut their vacation short so they could vote; they had come straight from the airport, apparently. When I came out, the line was just as long as when I went in.

*The local electrical substation flooded and/or exploded during Sandy. It's going to be *weeks* before my neighborhood has power

I grew up in New York, with the big green voting machines; you pulled a lever to register your vote. They were awesome. My father used to bring me with him into the voting booth. I remember how thrilled I was the day got to go into that booth alone, and pull that lever on my own. I still feel that thrill, even though now I mark a paper ballot, and vote by mail.

I'd been wondering about how they were going to handle local candidates/propositions/whatever; I'd heard that New Yorkers could vote at any polling place because of the storm, but the news didn't say if they'd print out a copy of "your" ballot for you or what.

I voted earlier today, and am somewhat aghast at the number of ballot measures that made it on this year (I should note that I'm in Berkeley, so there are always a lot of ballot measures). Between state, county and city, I counted 23 ballot measures across a four or five page ballot, which is impressive, in a slightly disturbing way, to someone who is used to seeing a handful of measures at most (e.g., Massachusetts, where I grew up, might have 3-5 any given year, with the chance for another 1-2 for the city).

My minor griping about ballot measure overload notwithstanding, I very much want to see Prop 30 pass, since the consequences for the UC system (where the Amazing Girlfriend and I are grad students) are dire.

Cally (56): Right, I don't get to vote for the local stuff. If I had voted somewhere in my county, I could have voted for more races; the closer to my actual polling place the more overlap there would be. If I could have made it to my county board of elections by yesterday, I could have voted absentee, but that trip just wasn't going to happen.

I was hoping my polling place would be open today--the board of elections wasn't committing itself one way or the other as of yesterday--but it was definitely closed. I *might* have been able to get to a polling place in the next town over, but with so many traffic lights still out, I decided not to risk it.

Sten @38: One of my coworkers was saying that there are reports of something like that happening to some of the absentee ballots in Oregon, where someone got into the mailbox for them and filled in a bunch of votes on the downticket races that had been left blank.

I voted a couple of hours ago; here in my part of Silicon Valley we use paper ballots where you draw a line in pen to connect two halves of an arrow pointing to your candidate(s) of choice. Short lines (about 4 people in front of me), probably because they've been heavily promoting early voting by mail for years here.

As of this morning, only two ballots were suspected of having been tampered with. (The suspect used pencil to fill in the bubbles; the original voters used ink.) Those two will have to be tossed. But many more were "quarantined" just in case.

Bill Stewart #43... yeah, that thought had occurred to me, too. However, I'm going to give the election guys the benefit of the doubt--this is the first time they've tried the "vote anywhere in the county". I do think, from a project management standpoint, that it might not have been ideal to have the maiden test of voting countywide on a major, heavily-contested nationwide election.

It's just weird--five voting machines has been the standard at my polling place for the past...*thinks* 12 years, minimum, which is as long as I've been voting here, and it's never been a problem until now.

I suspect that we've been spared a great deal of the voter shenanigans going on because we're not a swing state.

Michael Weholt @24, I haven't read all the way downthread so I apologize if this has already been answered, but at least from my experience with the paper-ballots-filled-out-with-black-markers-and-scanned-by-a-machine-that-eats-the-ballot that we use in my district in Illinois, the machine will spit the ballot out if ANY contests are left blank. (If you deliberately did not vote in a contest or referendum, you feed it back in again and it will accept it the second time).

Jennifer Baughman #63, I'm in South Austin and had the same experience you did - same number of machines, way longer lines. I've heard similar anecdotes from around town, too. Maybe it really is just a high turnout.

It's possible the machines have different settings that the election commission(s) choose between. My local ones spit out undervotes the first time and accept them the second. At least they've done so in previous years; this year I voted in all races (even the uncontested ones) so I don't know if that's still true.

My name wasn't on the list, today, at the same polling place where I've voted since 1980-something. The poll workers mentioned that a number of names seemed to be missing from the rolls, this year. Over a hundred? I asked, and the answer was affirmative.

So I'll have to call the telephone number on the provisional envelope receipt to see if my ballot was counted.

Anyway, I now know what I'm doing for the evening. (Curling up with a laptop and a beverage to watch the results with a friend 1500 miles away. We've done it twice now, which makes it a tradition. Right?)

Also in Austin, here, and there was a short line days and days ago when I voted early. (On the UT campus, as the polling place there is right next to the auto-coffee monolith.) Today when I passed that building, the line wrapped around at least two and a half sides of the building--and I am talking about a very large student center, not any tiny just-for-classrooms building.

Then I passed another polling place by the grocery store on the way home, and the line there had shrunk since this morning; instead of stretching out to the parking lot, it was just about a half dozen people out the door. But I couldn't quite tell how crowded the line inside was; "very", I think.

I think it's a higher turnout. I don't know. The new voter ID stuff slowed things down slightly when I was voting, and "slightly" probably multiplies pretty fast.

Lee @83, for the first time in years, I was *not* asked for a photo ID. I had it in my hand and they said, "oh, we'll probably not need that..." (They did compare my signature with the signature on my registration.) I'm in Illinois.

Lee @83: They scanned my driver's license, since that's what I had with me, but I saw people using their voter registration cards, too. I was comparing it to the last presidential election I voted in, in another state, where I told them my name and then signed by it, no ID required; but possibly Texas has always wanted the voter registration card, and I just didn't remember.

I don't think I've ever had to show my ID at a polling place...at least since I moved to NY. But then I live in a smallish town. On the other hand, they have a copy of my signature printed on the form where I sign, so I suppose they can compare those.

One change from previous years-- in other elections, I got mail about my polling place, and people nudging me to vote. This year, all the communication came from campaigns, and I needed to look up my polling place online.

Cassy B @ 86: Fellow Illinoisan here, and I noticed the same thing. I was in the process of taking out my photo i.d. when I was waved on to the next station. Come to think, all they did was ask for my address and check off my name on the roll.

Four years ago, I was jubilant -- it felt as though America had finally come out from under the Shadow. Tonight my feelings can more accurately be described as deep relief -- we dodged a bullet, but we're still under fire.

It occurred to me the other day that the Republicans pretty much ran a campaign targeted entirely to the Angry White Voter, while simultaneously sneering at blacks and Latinos for practicing "tribal politics". Well, DUH -- if you've made it very clear to non-whites that your campaign has nothing to offer them, you shouldn't be surprised that they flock to the other guy! I can only hope that the article someone linked here recently is correct about this being the last time that kind of approach will fly.

Lee @ 100: It's so striking when you look at the crowds at the two events. Apparently all white for Romney. All colors (including white!) for Obama. I shouldn't be surprised. The conventions were like that, too, but it's so creepy.

Hilary @88: I live in NYC and have never needed ID. Your name, address, and signature is in the book, you sign, they compare, easy-speasy.

Many people had the notices that had been mailed to them. I didn't, but I had memorized my E.D. and A.D. The lady at the door (we had a line snaking out the door and around the corner from the polling place) asked to see that, and when I gave the E.D. number said "Are you sure?" Yes, I was sure.

Yeah, New Hampshire has an all-female congressional delegation and a woman in the governor's office.

On the governor's race: Last night the talking heads were blaming Ovide Lamontagne's defeat on negative ads paid for by out-of-state interests. But really... Ovide has run for state or national office four times over the past twenty years. Once for the House, once for the Senate, and, now, twice for governor. The last time he ran for governor his defeat was of historic proportions; he gave us our first Democratic governor in forty years, and our first female governor ever. (This was partly because he opposed state-funded kindergarten, I'm sure.) This time, the race for Governor was such a rout that the AP called it about an hour after the polls closed. Ovide has been standing firm: he still opposed state-funded kindergarten.

Ovide is a man of principles. Most of your Republicans run to the right during primaries and run to the center during campaigns. Ovide ran to the right in the primary and didn't change during the campaign. He started pretty far right, too. So far right that the Tea Party ran a guy against him in the primary because they thought Lamontagne was a wingnut.

So, before I blamed the attack ads this time around, I'd look to see why Ovide was defeated in every election he's stood for over the past two decades, and why he couldn't even carry his home district where they presumably know the man himself.

This is a heavily African-American (and Afro-Caribbean) area, and there was an actual impromptu parade down this street shortly before midnight last night, complete with drum rolls and horn blats. The celebration started a little after 11:00 with lots of shouting, whooping, and chanting of "Obama!" and "Four more years!"

Jim 109: So far right that the Tea Party ran a guy against him in the primary because they thought Lamontagne was a wingnut.

I just have to stop looking at that sentence before my mouth dries out completely.

His own district, huh? Wow. Must be the kind of guy who fortifies his property lines and shoots other people's cats.

Even after Michelle Bachman showed what a bug-eyed airhead nutbar she is in the primaries, they still re-elected her. That means that Minnesota's 6th Congressional District's voters are mostly homophobic stupid crazy assholes. I feel sorry for anyone who isn't, and lives among such horrible people.

I napped, and woke up at 3:45am and checked things. And reacted with an "Oh thank goodness" and a "HOORAY!".

I remember the KER-CHUNK machines, but it's been a veeeeery long time.

Here in Tennessee, apparently the poll workers have been instructed to take _back_ the numbered stub you're given (here, you enter the number from it into the machine to identify your vote) after you've voted. They didn't used to do this a couple years ago. I was early-voting, but I can't imagine they changed the procedure between then and yesterday?

And a quiet "hooray" for Maine and Maryland as well, for joining the 21st century marriage-wise.

So... it looks like the Dixville Notch prediction was as close to 'right on the money' as it could be, given that it can't simultaneously say "number of voters: tie" and "one party wins over the other"?

Since I don't think I saw it noted here yet, the Register reported that Maine duly elected its first Orc Assassin Rogue to its State Senate, ignoring the Republican attacks on W**** of W**C**** players as unfit for public office. Another blow for equality! (Of Orcs, of Rogues, or of gamers, you decide.)

I am now considering the possibility that that big pile of money *did* buy results -- it bought the Republicans ~48% of the popular vote, continued control of the House, and continued status as a credible pillar of the two-party system.

(Sorry: should have said "big pile of money plus a systematic vote-suppression campaign.")

(I mean "credible" to the population as a whole, not to me, of course.)

Seventy-nine incumbents were defeated in the House. Only four of them were Democrats.

The odious House Speaker, William O'Brien, was re-elected, but is no longer House Majority Leader. He turned down the chance to become House Minority Leader.

The New Hampshire Senate, formerly 19-5 Republican, is now split 13-11 Republican and, depending on a whether one challenger gets a recount in his race (7/10 of a percent between them)and the recount goes his way, might go to 12-12.

Have you heard about what Horn is doing? We need leadership in the NHGOP and NOT a Chicago-style politico. Visit the truth why we cannot have her as a representative for the NHGOP! Anyone but Jennifer Horn!

[Almost certainly drive-by spam, but watching New Hampshire Republicans form a circular firing squad is so much fun. Decided to release this one anyway after disabling the link. Since they want "anyone" but Jennifer Horn, and I'm "anyone," y'all can pick me as the next NHGOP Chair. -- Rulufpo Cirosi, Duty Gnome]

Well, there are eight people named Octavio Vlk in the USA (not exactly a common name) and none of them has ever posted before anywhere on the Google-indexed web. The e-mail address "Octavio" gave is in a form and format that is very common among spammers. (That was the flag that caught the gnomes' attention to start with.)